Law School By Default

Many of the challenges facing the legal profession can be reduced to supply and demand: too many lawyers chasing too little work, which itself results from too many people going to law school. And why do people go to law school? Often it’s a failure of imagination. As a former professor of mine put it, “Law school is the great American default option for smart kids who can’t stand the sight of blood.” If you’re intelligent, ambitious, and undecided about your future, going directly from college to law school is the path of least resistance. Too little resistance, and not enough deliberation—which is why law schools should follow the model of many business schools and require incoming students to have at least two years of post-undergraduate experience.